


A Most Unfortunate Evening

by within_a_dream



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 22:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11495889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: Joly, Grantaire, and Bossuet are sent out to deliver illicit pamphlets. Joly runs into trouble (in the form of a brick wall) and his friends comfort him.





	A Most Unfortunate Evening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vegan_Venom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vegan_Venom/gifts).



Joly ran, gripping his now-crushed pamphlets in his hand and looking over his shoulder. He ducked into an alley, Grantaire and Bossuet following close behind, and watched the street behind him disappear with no sign of the men who’d been chasing them.

He let out a whoop, a grin spreading across his face. It had taken more streets than he’d cared to run down, and several turns sharp enough that he’d nearly fallen, but he was finally sure they’d lost the Guard. Then he ran face-first into something hard, and fell backwards onto his backside.

The force of the hit took his breath away. For a moment, Joly was convinced that they hadn’t gotten away after all, and that he’d just taken a rifle butt to the head. Then the black fog covering his sight crept back somewhat, and he saw a building with a dark stain right at its sharpest corner.

And then he put his hand to his forehead, saw the blood, and his vision went entirely black.

Through the ringing in his ears, Joly heard a voice—Grantaire’s voice, he thought, but it was hard to tell.

“Are you all right?”

Joly opened his eyes to squint at Grantaire, caught sight of the blood dripping from his brow, and squeezed them shut again. “I think I might faint.”

“Typically, the people swooning in my arms are prettier and less bloody.”

Joly couldn’t even muster up a laugh as Grantaire brushed his hair aside.

“It’s just a scrape,” he said, patting Joly on the shoulder in a laughable attempt to be comforting. “You’ll look like you came out on the wrong side of a fight tomorrow, and the dizziness isn’t strange, but you’re perfectly fine.” Grantaire paused, and sighed. “So you can stand up, and we’ll be on our way.”

“I’m dying,” Joly croaked out.

“Trust me, my friend, I’ve taken my fair share of falls, and it takes more than headbutting a building to kill a man.”

“You saw the blood. And I began to faint, for a moment there, that’s never a good sign. Oh, I’m sure I’ve damaged something—”

“Joly, you aren’t dying.” He hadn’t even seen Bossuet, who was apparently seated in a spot obscured by the black fringe still floating at the edge of his line of sight. “What would you tell a patient, who came to you with a laceration to the forehead?”

“The…the blood is typical. It comes with a head wound, and it will look worrisome, but as long as it’s bandaged it isn’t likely to kill them. But, Bossuet, the dizziness sounds like trauma—”

“Joly.” Bossuet interrupted him again, taking his hand. “Do you remember last week, when I dropped a glass and cut my hand? You nearly fainted.”

Grantaire scoffed. “Are you telling me that he’s afraid of blood? Joly, you’re nearly a doctor!”

“It’s been better,” Joly mumbled, still determinedly keeping his eyes shut. “It only bothers me if it’s unexpected.”

“Can you stand, do you think?”

Joly opened his eyes to see Bossuet glaring at Grantaire. Then he caught sight of the bloodstain on his hand where he’d touched the wound, and his head spun. “I won’t be walking anywhere unless you’re willing to lead me.”

“I’ve a better idea.”

Coming from Grantaire, that was more fearsome than dying of nerves in an alley. But Joly was too dizzy and in too much pain to argue. “Do your worst.”

Grantaire pulled a handkerchief (surprisingly clean, for him) from one pocket, and a flask from another. “It’s the sight of the blood that bothers you, yes?”

Seeing the plan take form, Joly nodded (and immediately regretted his movement as his head began to throb). “Are you sure that’s sanitary?”

“You’ll need to clean the dirt off anyway. And I don’t see anything else around to wash your face with, do you?” Grantaire poured the contents of the flask onto his handkerchief. “It will likely sting, though. This is good liquor.”

Joly gritted his teeth as Grantaire dabbed at his forehead. He was careful, at least, to keep the sullied cloth out of Joly’s line of sight once he’d finished, and once Joly wiped his hand on his trousers, there was little enough blood left that he could look at himself without fear of fainting.

He had to cling tightly to Bossuet on the walk back to their rooms, but he managed to make it without swooning.

“See, we made it safely.” Bossuet opened the door for him, and turned to bid his farewells to Grantaire.

“If next time you feel the need to swoon, I’ve thought it over, and I won’t object to you doing so in my arms,” Grantaire said with a grin. “And I’ll expect a bottle of liquor, or at least of wine, at the next meeting of the ABC.”

“If I can manage to get there,” Joly groaned. After the dizziness subsided, the head pain had returned in earnest. Even the steps to his rooms seemed insurmountable, much less the walk to the Musain tomorrow evening.

“I have to warn you, I’ll charge interest.”

With that, Bossuet waved him off, and he and Joly began the arduous journey up the staircase.

 

With the help of a vigorous washing and a damp cloth, Joly managed to mitigate both the pain in his head and the nerves enough to fall asleep. It was a bit of a shock to wake up the next afternoon, with the events of the past night having faded into something of a dream during the hours he’d spent coming in and out of sleep, and catch sight of himself in the mirror.

Grantaire hadn’t lied to him. Joly looked as if he’d been in a truly fearsome fight, and come out rather worse than his opponent. The knowledge that he _had_ (he’d barely left a dent in the wall, after all) didn’t do much to soothe his irritation.

“Why the face?” Bossuet, as usual, sounded far too cheerful for such an inauspicious day

“I’ll have to go to the meeting tonight looking like this—” Joly gestured at the mottled purple bruise covering his face “—and tell Enjolras we failed to deliver a single pamphlet into the hands of the people. And besides all that, I owe Grantaire a drink.”

“Ah, but you fought the very city, and won!” Bossuet smiled. “And if one is chased off by the National Guard, one knows one is doing something right. I rather think my copies of the pamphlet are covering half of Paris by now, with how I dropped them during our flight. Perhaps they’ll make it into the hands of the people after all.”

Joly dabbed at his bruise with some water from the basin, trying to remove the last of the blood. “I hope I don’t scare anyone, showing up with the face of a back-alley boxer.”

“Enjolras is like to add to it if he sees you giving Grantaire the drinks you promised him.”

Joly sighed. “I suppose I ought to stop by his rooms before, then, lest I be mistaken for supporting his actions.”

“I’ll wait for you at the Musain. And, my friend…”

“Yes?”

“Don’t let any walls get the better of you on your way there.”


End file.
